He rose from humble beginnings, worked his way through the local leagues before graduating to become a major player on the international stage, netting him millions of dollars along the way.
But this isn't a tale about a footballing hero. This is a story about one of modern sport's greatest villains -- the man dubbed the most notorious match-fixer in the world.
You may not be familiar with the name Wilson Raj Perumal but given how prolific he was, you might have watched one of the games he's fixed.
Perumal plied his trade in Singapore's local football leagues in the late 1980s before joining what international crime-fighting organization INTERPOL recently described as "the world's most notorious match-fixing syndicate" allegedly headed by Tan Seet Eng -- better known as "Dan Tan," who is now reportedly in detention in Singapore.
Perumal says he achieved around a 70-80% success rate and claims to have rigged games at the Olympics, World Cup qualifiers, the women's World Cup, the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the African Cup of Nations.
Perumal served one year of a two-year sentence before being extradited to Hungary where he has been helping police there with match-fixing investigations in the Balkans.
Source: Don Riddell and Matthew Knight, "Wilson Raj Perumal: The man who fixed football", 27 August 2014, CNN
